As surely as the sun revolves around Earth, the gaffe
that keeps giving has its origins in Cincinnati. I’m talking about
Republican Todd Akin, the Missouri anti-abortion senatorial candidate
who stupidly asserted that some rapes are “legitimate.”

Almost as soon as the health care reform bill finally was passed in March, the Ohio Liberty Council — an organization comprised of various Tea Party-related groups — promised it would exploit the public outrage and mount a petition effort to have the federal law barred from taking effect in Ohio. Just days before the June 30 deadline to turn in their petition signatures, the group called off its effort with less than half the signatures required.

It's difficult to dispute that Ronald Reagan transformed the nation's political and economic thinking. Getting poor people to believe in the trickle-down theory is like getting a sixth grader to say the Pledge of Allegiance without being scared. That's why a North Carolina congressman today suggested that the government redraw the $50 bill with Reagan's head on it.

Is it time for a Hip Hip (re)definition ... again?

Call me crazy, but lately I've been thinking that Hip Hop has more in common with the Republican Party — more specifically, the much discussed "Far Right" — than we might ever have imagined. Both entities are suffering an identity crisis resulting in crazy in-fighting.

Republicans keep throwing everybody against the wall to see who sticks in terms of a revolutionary leader. Though a hypocritical radio blowhard seems to have emerged the winner, in the recent past the party has slung a plumber and a beauty queen/moose killer at the public to no avail. Our favorite new awkward Republican is Hi-Caliber, a construction-worker-turned-rapper from New Jersey.

Al Franken was correct back in 1996 when he said Rush Limbaugh was a big fat idiot. A lot has changed in 13 years; Franken, for instance, is one court ruling away from becoming the junior U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Limbaugh, however, has remained consistently big, fat and idiotic. Maybe even more so.

A day after a national survey determined that most of America dislikes Cincinnati as much as those of us who live here, Mayor Mark Mallory came out and said, "Naw man, that survey ain't right." Only 13 percent of the 2,260 people surveyed said they'd like to live in Cincinnati, placing the Queen City 28th out of 30 cities, ahead of only fellow-dying Midwestern towns Cleveland and Detroit.